


The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [19]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dogs are cool, M/M, People like dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki + Hatchi = BFF4EVA</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Sleet</p>
            </blockquote>





	The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a day late. I apologize. The world of retail is a cruel one.

Loki hops and bounds at the end of his leash. Liam doesn't blame him. The weather has been shit for days now. Is still shit. But they've got enough of a break in the shittiness for an actual walk, instead of a trudge. Loki enjoys those even less than Liam, who has to lift the dog up over the threshold and set him down on the wet pavement before he'll start moving. Liam doesn't blame him for that, either, but they all have to make sacrifices to keep his security deposit.

There's still a worryingly thick cloud cover hanging low over the city, looking near enough to touch if he could just climb up onto this roof or that one. Like he could swipe his fingers through it, write his name in it. Liam imagines it would only feel like dense water vapor, but he likes to imagine it all the same.

Loki leaps and prances, pulling Liam along to get an investigative sniff of the same postbox he sniffs on every walk. He thinks that Loki and the other dogs in the neighborhood are having a conversation there in their overlapping smells, although he's pretty sure it wouldn't be a conversation he'd want to listen to even if he could. THIS IS MINE. NO THIS IS MINE. HOW DARE YOU SIR THIS IS _MINE_.

Loki lifts his leg and pees on the postbox. Liam stands there and watches. No one tells you, before you get a dog, how much time you'll spend being a witness to its bodily functions. And isn't that a weird thought? He's like his dog's Groom of the Stool.

Loki prances away, pleased with a job well done. He doesn't care that he does this same thing every day. He doesn't care that, by the time he gets back here later tonight, the postbox will no longer smell like his property – or like his pee, anyway, however it works for dogs. He probably doesn't even really recognize that it's the same postbox he's been peeing on for years now.

Dogs have it so good.

Loki just enjoys walkies for a while, no particularly goal in mind, the curly brush of his tail bobbing happily. Liam follows along. The first few warning drops of freezing rain catch them both by surprise. Liam looks up, as if to check. Loki doesn't look up, because dogs are blithely and boldly unaware of the sky and its goings-on. He is therefore completely unprepared for the sudden opening up of the clouds, the quick escalation from pattering to downpour.

Liam scoops him up and rushes under the cover of a bus shelter. It was a lot easier to do when Loki was still a puppy. Now he's pushing nine kilos, which isn't much when it's dead weight. Nine kilos turns into a lot more to handle when it's made up of damp, squirming dog.

Liam sets him down on the concrete and they stand for a moment watching the weather be unleashed upon the earth. The rain bounces in a way that means it isn't rain.

Wonderful.

Loki catches sight of someone else hurrying to take refuge under the bus shelter before Liam does. He cocks his head and his tail starts flopping more wildly, eager to be sharing this small space for the foreseeable future. Liam's not nearly as enthusiastic.

"Fuck," the guy swears, unearthing a fluffy ball of orange fur out from beneath his jacket as soon as he's under cover. The fluff ball shakes itself as soon as its tiny feet are on the ground. It slightly upsets the alignment of blue quilted coat on its tiny back in the process.

Loki moves in immediately to make friends. The guy moves immediately to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the plastic cover of the cologne ad walling them in on one side, twitching his fingers through the artful sweep of his dark hair. He doesn't seem to notice Liam or Loki at all, but his dog engages in mutual butt-sniffing.

"Er," says Liam, when the circling and butt-sniffing has tangled both dogs.

The man looks over his shoulder and Liam feels a sudden surge of gratitude for the company. If he had a tail, it would be wagging. It's not every day you get to share space with a renegade model. Or a muse for great works or art. Or a soon-to-be discovered heart-throb. Whatever this boy is, because he must be something more impressive than just another pedestrian.

"Aw, shit," the guy says. The words fall half-formed out of his lazy mouth, an accent Liam can only place as northern. He crouches down to untangle the leads and his fluff ball of a dog balances on its back legs in excitement. Unwarranted, Liam would think normally, except that he thinks – yes, this boy getting on his knees should absolutely be celebrated.

"I think they were friendship braiding their leads together," Liam says, because they should manage something more than a curse word between them.

The boy looks up at him through the thick fringe of his lashes, and Liam thinks _people like this don't exist in reality_. The boy smiles, gives a breath of a laugh. "You can't do a braid with just two," he says.

"Well, they're only dogs," Liam points out. "Not always the most logical of people."

The boy makes a noise of agreement, dropping his dog's lead to pull it through a loop of Loki's. The little dog doesn't seem to care about the slack. Loki would have bolted.

Liam tries not to glance at the boy too much, in the silence that follows. Instead he watches the dogs. Loki likes to drop down with a yip, little doggy butt up in the air, taking playful nips at the fluff ball, who dances away in delight. After the third time they've done this routine, Liam thinks it safe to look over.

The boy is smiling a little as he watches. He has a tattoo covering the back of his left hand, a couple of slender silver loops in each ear, and his leather jacket has the look of being distressed by time instead of design. He doesn't seem the type to have an orange puff ball of a dog. But maybe that's prejudiced.

"What's her name?" Liam asks, too loud and too sudden. He clears his throat a bit.

The boy doesn't look up. "His. Hatchi."

Liam gives a dopey little nod. "Cool." He doesn't know if it's cool or not, actually. He has no idea what Hatchi means. It sounds nice, though, in the boy's sluggish accent. "Mine's Loki."

"Yours is?" The boy smiles, looks over at him again, finally. "Sick. Your parents into comics or mythology, then?"

Liam laughs and gives Loki a tug to keep him from rolling out into the rain as he flops over on his back to swat at Hatchi. It's only half-successful. "Nah. Neither. I'm just Liam."

The boy swaps over Hatchi's lead to stick his hand out. "Zayn," he says.

Loki barks and darts forward, making Hatchi yip and prance back, tiny little feet pattering. He balances for a moment on his back legs before pouncing forward, aiming for Loki's head. Loki loves it.

"You live near here?" Liam asks, the seal of Zayn's palm against his own a warm imprint that he can't rub off of his skin. "I mean-- The dogs. We should-- Playdate."

It's going to take hours and hours for Liam to stop replaying the curl of Zayn's mouth as he smiles and says: "Yeah, Liam. We'd like that."


End file.
